This Is Only The Beginning
by Kyra Kristine
Summary: Gerard and Mikey Way's little sister Rainelle goes through one of the hardest parts of her life and this is only the beginning.


The night was silent as I lay in bed, staring at the only beam of light shinning through the single, tiny window of Mikey's and my bedroom. The white walls, adorned with posters of comic book characters and punk rock bands, were lit with the gentle glow of the moon. I studied the faces on the posters for hours that night, like many nights before, hoping to escape in a dream where I was leading an equally as exciting life as their owners.

I blinked a few times and shifted in the uncomfortable twin bed, trying my hardest to fall back asleep. It was already 4:15 in the morning and I had been awake for nearly 2 hours due to a reoccurring bad dream.

Mikey, my big brother, was sound asleep in his bed across the room, snoring quietly as usual. In the dim light I could see that his mouth was slightly agape and his eyes were twitching rapidly. He was out cold. Why was it that he never seemed to have a care in the world? He always slept soundly through the night, never spoke once of a bad dream, always had an encouraging word, and always seemed to look on the bright side, no matter the situation.

This scrawny, light brown haired boy was the most carefree person I had ever met. Nothing seemed to faze him, yet on the other hand every tiny thing that happened in my life affected me so greatly. Emotionlessness must've been a male Way family gene. Us girls always seemed to get the shitty end of the stick. Periods, pregnancy, emotions; it doesn't seem fair.

Just then, I heard a small creak resonating from the direction of the bedroom door, startling me out of my thoughts. I glanced in the direction and sure enough there was a dark figure standing in the doorway.

"Rain, are you awake?" my oldest brother Gerard's voice whispered to me nearly inaudibly. At first I didn't say anything, waiting in the silence, "Rainelle, are you awake?" he asked again.

"Yes, Gee. What is it?" I whispered, sitting up in my bed. I didn't tell him, but I was secretly glad that he was awake. I needed someone to talk to and he was always one of my favorite choices.

Gerard was silent, but his hand motioned for me to come with him. There was some sort of desperation in the gesture as I slung my legs out from under the covers and reluctantly shuffled my feet toward him. I avoided the well-known creaks in the wood floor, trying my best to not wake up the peacefully snoring, happily oblivious Mikey.

"Did I wake you up?" Gerard asked once the door was closed quietly behind me. In the light of the living room I could make out the visible weariness of his features. Not a normal weariness, but a desperate weariness; a yearning for something different, for a change that wasn't coming.

I shook my head after a moment, "I've been awake," I said as I sat down on the living room couch right outside my bedroom door. "Good." Gerard sat down beside me. "I couldn't sleep, so I thought I'd come talk to you," he was whispering also, because only feet in either direction were our parents' bedroom door as well as mine and Mikey's.

Our house was small, but it fit my family perfectly. It was all we needed, and to be honest, all we could afford on the measly nurses' and factory worker salary my parents brought home once every two weeks.

It was only a mere 930 square feet: one story, 3 bedrooms, and one bathroom. The compactness never really bothered me though, Gerard or Mikey either. My grandma always said that if we had lived in a house any larger, my brothers and I wouldn't be as close as we are now, and I never doubted Grandma Rush.

"Why were you awake anyway?" Gerard snapped me back to reality with a gentle nudge as he plopped onto the couch beside me. His greasy, black hair fell into his face and he pushed it out of the way with a grunt, giving me a concerned glare.

"I had a bad dream," I mumbled, sinking into the couch a little. Gerard nodded his head, averting his eyes toward the bay window that faced the street.

"What about?"

"Jessie." Everything was still, but I could feel Gerard tense beside me. Jessie was my best friend who was murdered 5 months ago by two men on the street a few blocks from our house. She owed them 20 dollars that she didn't have. They killed her over 20 fucking dollars. Obviously we don't live in a pleasant neighborhood.

"I dreamt I was standing there, watching them hit her, but I couldn't do anything to stop them. I couldn't even move. I just stood there for what felt like an eternity watching and choking out noiseless shouts. I finally woke up when they shot her in the chest." Gerard didn't say anything. His face was placid and his mouth seemed taut. "Do you think that's how it happened, Gerard?" I asked.

I hadn't really talked about Jessie's death since it happened. At the funeral I tuned out everyone; every free therapy session the community gave to me was seen to me only as a chance to get away from the chaos unfolding at home. Her death was a topic I chose to avoid at all cost and my brothers knew that.

Just thinking of her beautiful, blood stained blonde hair the night I was brought into the station to ID the body gave me the chills. She was so innocent, so beautiful, and so underserving of death.

Gerard put his arm around my shoulder and pulled me into him. "I don't know kiddo. I really don't." He was still looking straight ahead, staring at the trees swirling in the wind. His hand gripped my shoulder tightly, giving me a sense of security, like as long as I had him by my side I wouldn't face the same fate as my friend.

"Why are you awake?" I asked after a few shared moments of quiet thinking.

My big brother squeezed my shoulder even tighter, letting out a sigh and adjusting himself on the couch. "I was just thinking about everything. I graduated college, I have a job, and I'm still not happy," he said, biting his lower lip.

"Why not?" I spoke softly, my eyes studying my tired looking brother.

I had noticed a lot lately that he had been dragging around, not interested in conversation or jokes or going out and having fun like any other 23 year old. He was just existing but not really living, something that he always told me to avoid: 'always live like you're dying tomorrow' he constantly told my brother and I. It was weird to hear from his very mouth a contradicting statement.

"I just think that I could be doing so much more. I could be helping people. I could be changing lives. Instead I go to an office 6 days a week, 8 hours a day, drawing stupid cartoons for shitty pay," he huffed and finally broke his gaze with the window, only to look down at the carpet. "It's just not how I imagined things to be. Ya know?"

He slid his rough hand down my shoulder, biting his lip in thought. Gerard had gone to art school, loathed it within weeks, but fought through it in hopes of being an esteemed comic book writer and illustrator. To his dismay the only job he could obtain was that of cartoon drawer for a well-known children's network across the bay in New York.

Gerard had always been the natural born artist of the family. Since a very young age his drawings and doodles showed so much potential. I even have one of his first comic book-esk drawings hanging on my bedroom wall. It was a portrayal of Mikey and I with ninja stars and nunchucks. It is actually pretty awesome. He passed this trait down to me, but my art could never compare to his. Partly because I never got formal training, only a few lessons from Gerard when he found the time.

There was an eerie silence in the room as I thought of the opportunities that might have opened up for me if I had gone to college. "I understand." I replied to my brother finally, "But at least you went to college. Mikey and I weren't as lucky as you." I nestled closer to his shoulder, feeling ashamed for even bringing it up. I never used that against Gerard because it wasn't his fault Mikey and I couldn't go to college.

Our parents were barely able to scavenge up enough money to send one kid to college let alone three. Since Mikey and I are only 10 months apart, the two of us graduated high school together almost a year and a half ago, but we weren't able to go to college. Instead we sat home and worked odd jobs every now and then, trying to make money to do something with our lives.

In 2 weeks, when school started in the fall, we would've been sophomores.

"Yeah. I guess you're right," Gerard said, looking at me with a straight face. He seemed agitated that I had even brought it up. He always tried to give us an education, he wanted more than anything for us to go to school in order to better our live, but there's only so much he could do on his own.

"Hey, if you hate your job that much, you should start another band." The thought came to me randomly, thinking of the musical talent both my brothers held. "I know you still like singing, Gee. You could form a band on the side and use it to get your mind off of work," I offered my helping thought to my brother, who shrugged it off.

"I wouldn't even know where to start," he mumbled, looking back at the carpet.

"Well Mikey can play bass, you can sing, Matt could play drums, and either you, Ray, or Frankie could play guitar. There, you have a band," I said, getting really excited just thinking about it. I never comprehended that my brothers and our friends would be capable of starting a band until I realized that, between them, they had every instrument covered.

"You're being crazy, sis," Gerard laughed, "A band wouldn't help me, it would just give me less time on my hands and more things to worry about," he said, moving so that he was now laying down with his head against the arm rest. His legs were stretched out over my lap and he stared up at me, waiting for a response.

I shook my head in disagreement, but didn't fight him. "Whatever you say, I think it'd be an awesome idea," I mumbled, shifting so I could lie down next to him, resting my head on his chest. Gerard let out a yawn, causing me to yawn as well.

"I'm sure you do, Rainelle. Now try and get some sleep," he whispered, kissing me on the top of the head before he closed his eyes. I was glad he didn't make me go back to my room, if that were the case I probably wouldn't have gotten any sleep.

I took a deep breath and closed me eyes as well, falling into a deep, dreamless sleep almost instantly.

"You aren't working hard enough!" a voice shouted from the kitchen, snapping me almost effortlessly from my slumber. "You need to get your kid's lives on track and sitting here in the kitchen, sipping your coffee isn't helping." I recognized the voice as my father's and it was far from a surprise.

Mom and dad had been fighting like this for years. It wasn't unusual for me to wake Mikey up at some ungodly hour, startled by the sound of yelling coming from the kitchen. It was only recently that the fighting had gotten out of hand, it was almost every morning or evening, and it often got physical.

I recalled two weeks ago when we heard scuffling in the kitchen. Mikey and I emerged from our room to find Gerard trying to pry dad's hands off of mom's neck. It was traumatizing to see, teaching me firsthand the consequences of upsetting my father.

"John, the kids are fine," mom insisted, "I don't know why we are still discussing this." Her clam voice was a sharp contrast to dad's gruff words.

Dad grunted in disagreement. "You let them parade around like a bunch of animals. You are completely unaware of the lives they lead," his voice was firm and unyielding, but it seemed by mom's lack of words that she was unfazed.

"Did you know both Gerard and Rainelle smoke? And Gerard drinks his life away when he's not at work; he's got three empty bottles of vodka in his room right now. I also found pot stashed under Mikey's mattress the other day. Are you proud of the way your kids are growing up?" My heart thumped hard in my chest, but mom just coolly cleared her throat without concern.

I glanced up at Gerard, who was now awake also. His face had gone white and his teeth were clamped down on his bottom lip. He hated when my parents fought just as much, if not more, than I did.

"Where do you think they learned those habits? You are being a hypocrite, John. Now please, the kids are sleeping," Mom's voice was still calm, but I could tell she was going to lose her patience soon.

"I don't give a shit if I'm being a hypocrite. I would think you'd want better for your kids then to see them throw their lives away on drugs and drinking. You should have gotten your lazy ass out of bed and gotten another job or something. Then maybe we could've sent Mikey and Rainelle to college and we wouldn't have to worry about them ending up like that Jessie Harper girl. Dead in a dark alley." Dad's voice was icy and I could almost feel its sting from where I was laying.

The thought of Jessie sent a shiver down my spine. Did dad really think all I was going to amount to was an untimely death? How cruel.

It was silent for a minute or two. You could, from cliché's standpoint, hear a pin drop on the linoleum tile of the kitchen. I anticipated mom's response and before I knew it she finally let loose.

"You have no fucking clue how hard I work for those kids, John." Her tiny voice became large and boomed through the kitchen, "I have two goddamn jobs, I pay the bills, I make the meals, I support them in every way possible, and I love the three of them to death. How dare you blame Michael and Rainelle's inability to go to college on me alone. You could have helped out a little, because I tried, John. I tried so hard to save the money for them. I want them to have a bright future and I want to see them succeed, you know that." Mom finished off her rant calmer than before, but I could still hear the pain in her voice.

She and I never had a good relationship. My brother's and I always joked that she was too awkward to be our mother. Hugs were forced, conversations were dry, and it felt as though we had to put fourth all the effort to make our relationship even the least bit normal. Despite all this, I felt her aching as I heard the sound of what must have been her crying.

"They'll never succeed, because you've failed them," dad spit. I heard mom shriek with pain and my mind dashed to the number of possible injuries my dad could have placed on her. There was a shuffling as he gathered his things and the backdoor was thrown open and slammed shut. It was over.

Tears stung my eyes as I held tightly to Gerard's t-shirt. I looked up at him; his face tight and pale and his eyes were looking up, as if he was trying to hold back tears himself.

"Gerard?" I whispered, shaking him gently. He slowly looked down at me, still biting his lip. "Are you okay?" I asked, sitting up a little and wiping my eyes with the back of my hand.

We could hear mom crying softly in the kitchen as well. I looked over the back of the couch and found her with her face buried in her folded arms resting on the kitchen table. I wanted to go touch her stiff back and run my fingers down her rough hair, but I stayed put.

Just then my bedroom door opened and a red eyed Mikey walked out. He wasn't crying, but it looked like he was about to. Mikey never cried. Out of the three of us he was the strongest, or at least the best at hiding his emotions.

He and I caught each other's eyes and he walked toward me, sitting down on the very edge of the couch near our feet.

"Mikey?" I whispered, feeling more tears drip down my cheeks. Seeing Mikey so zombie like made everything so much more real. We had been going through this for years, but never before have I seen Mikey take it so hard.

He opened his arms and I crawled into them thankfully. He held me tightly as I buried my face in his chest. Gerard shifted and was now sitting up on the other side of me. I shook with a sob as Mikey ran his fingers through my hair, trying to calm me.

"It's going to be alright," Mikey whispered, kissing my cheek, "I promise."


End file.
